Any questions?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/bass_tape_test.mp3

Okay, so I have two tracks here, cut up and reassembled. The first, the bass is just passing through the electronics of the tape machine on its way in while the tape is recording. The second, I played back the tape and recorded it into the computer. Note that my machine (Tascam MSR-16) does not have a dedicated repro head so I can't just roll tape while recording into the computer and get the sound of the whole thing, I have to play the tape back.

Chain is as follows:

J-bass w/EMGs & dead strings --> Sansamp Bass Driver --> modded AMEK channel strip --> FMR RNLA compressor --> Tascam MSR-16 w/Quantegy 456 @ 15 ips, DBX noise reduction engaged --> Focusrite Saffire Pro line in.

It starts off without the tape. Then with. Then without, etc. 'til the end.

Can anyone hear where the edits are?

I should do a guitar one of these too; bass might not be the ideal candidate instrument.

Interesting.

Not hearing a shit tonne between them, though the middle section seems to have a bit more mid emphasis, dirt, and fret-type noise focus to it. Comes across as a bit sharper/more aggressive?

As for edits, i can't hear anything that screams "EDIT!" to me, though the timbre of the bassounds changes a couple times through the thing, starting brightish, then going duller, then coming back bright for a short spell. Whether this is because of edits or because of playing attack or fretboard position, i dunno. And it doesn't matter, because it sounds natural, and i probably wouldn't even be able to hear a difference in timbre within the context of a mix at all.

The change in tone is probably the edit points, me cutting from no tape to tape and back again. If I fire up Logic later, I'll post up where the changes are.

The somewhat darker, dirtier tones are the tape sections. I didn't try really pushing the thing, though. I'd like to get my hands on some GP9 or 499 to hear the differences in the different tape formulations. I've only ever used 456; that's what my machine's set up for and from what I gather what it was intended to be used with when they designed the thing.

I wasn't hearing much difference either. It was a little darker at parts but I couldn't really pinpoint where it changed. More like "hey its a little darker now and it was darker just before but I didn't really catch where the change was."